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39 thoughts on “Now it gets interesting”

For as far as I can remember, mayoral races in Montréal always have been 3-guys races, usually involving an ex-police chief. The modus-operandi being the ex-police chief propped against the serious opponent of the incumbent in order to divide the opposition vote.

The voter turnout for the advance polls was double of 4 years ago. Unexpected high voter turnout usually means a strong protest vote. I believe the Mayor is in trouble and although he may just get in, there is no doubt that city council will have an interesting mix.

Wow. Even though I don’t support him I kinda hope Bergeron does win, it’ll certainly make for some lively times. He benefits from the throw the bums out mood in the city, and the self inflicted wounds of the other leaders…

The three choices are God-awful:
A corrupt whiner.
A unilingual autocrat.
A loopy 9/11 conspiracy theorist.

Maybe O’Sullivan is the best choice……

To get back 50 years and have the car destroy the city yet again, and forcing people out in the ’burbs, yes, by all means, vote O’Stupid (which is a loopy scatholic Opus-Deiist, by the way)…
It’s just too bad that scepticism towards the 9/11 attacks has so much to do with running the metropolis.

I’m confident that you might have said something similar about Stockwell Day a few years ago: “So what if he believes the earth was created in 6 days – what does that have to do with running a country?”

It does matter… it shows his lack of reasoning abilities and how easily he will jump to the conclusion he wants to see without any evidence at all. Of course, this sounds like standard behaviour for a politician, but he shouldn’t be advertising it.

Honnestly, I’m stumped as to who to vote for. A neighbour who helped me out a while back is running for Mr Tremblay but I can’t ignore the corruption scandals, to me Mr Labonté was an opportunist in the French sense of the word. At this point Mr 9/11 truther is starting to look good…

I think that’s good advice. Posters here defending Bergeron have also pointed out that he has a new young team, regardless of what you think of the guy. They might be less corrupt, just by lack of opportunity to be corrupted.

As far as having a 9/11 conspiracy theorist (and let’s be honest, though it is a ridiculous position to hold, it has little to do with Richard Bergeron’s priorities for Montreal) as mayor, look at it this way:

I don’t think anyone’s ever claimed that as mayor he’d be responsible for the 9/11 dossier as mayor. Or other bizarre theories he’s espoused. What one looks for in a politician is some insight into character, some sign, one way or another, regarding a candidate’s honesty, intelligence, and mental balance. Running a big city, running anything requires common sense and a capacity to tell a crazy, bad idea from a good one.

Personnally, I’ll probably vote for Bergeron. Tremblay has to pay for his team corruption (he IS the party leader after all), and Harel, though I supported the fusions (and still do), is more attracted to power than anything else I gather.

It’s been a while than municipal politics are more fascinating than provincial or federal elections. And mostly, here’s hoping that voter turnout will be high.

I wouldn’t call them “absurd”. Personally, I was proud to see that a mainstream politician was open to discussion concerning the 9/11 truth movement. Now, I see Bergeron as a bit of a pussy!

On the other hand, many politicians push the concern of 9/11 attacks and Bush’s possible involvement aside by saying they’re are much more important things to be dealt with, which is true. If “truthers” would have pushed hard from Day 1, we would see a good portion of the American population believing it was Bush (and he would’ve been impeached).

But, I’m glad we will have these watchdogs around for any future attacks.

many politicians push the concern of 9/11 attacks and Bush’s possible involvement aside by saying they’re are much more important things to be dealt with

Actually, I think many politicians push the “concern” aside by saying “you want me to believe the guy who can’t pronounce ‘nuclear’ is responsible for a massive secret government conspiracy to kill thousands of his own people?”

Most truthers say it was Dick Cheney at the helm of the operation (the reason he was at NORTHCOM that day). Anyone who says that Bush pulled this off solo does not know what they’re talking about. Politicians use that theory to dodge question on 9/11.

Actually, I think many politicians push the "concern" aside by saying "you want me to believe the guy who can’t pronounce ‘nuclear’ is responsible for a massive secret government conspiracy to kill thousands of his own people?"

No, but he could very well be the puppet of those who do… :)
(And no, not a government conspiracy, but a bourgeois conspiracy to instill fear in the populace in order to install a fascist regime).

Looking at Bergeron’s comments, it’s obvious that his concerns about 9/11, like most people’s concerns about 9/11, are based around his own misunderstanding of facts.

The truthers have failed to come up with any substantial evidence that it was an inside job after 8 years, so yeah, I’d call it absurd for politicians to give them credibility unless they come up with a substantial lead. And some kid overanalyzing the pixel artifacts in grainy footage doesn’t count… we all know how credible *that* is.

Maybe Don wasn’t being entirely fair in this case. I will say this: I have no problem whatsoever with Bergeron requesting police protection before he finds a bomb in his basement. Given the claims of widespread intimidation of city officials, I’m surprised that a front-running candidate has to ask for security. So I do think Don is off-base there….

I reminded a friend today — election day — to vote, to which he replied that he had already voted — for the Rhino party. When I expressed surprise, saying that I didn’t know they were running, he answered: They aren’t. That’s why I voted for them.